Da Vinci center gets a boost

A driveway will allow visitors to enter from Hamilton Street bypass.

Visitors to the proposed Da Vinci Discovery Center of Science and Technology at Cedar Crest College in Allentown will be able to reach it from the Hamilton Boulevard bypass.

Project engineer J. Scott Pidcock told the Allentown Planning Commission Tuesday that a two-pronged driveway will permit motorists to enter from the bypass and exit on a separate lane that will be marked with a stop sign. The state Department of Transportation has granted a permit for the driveway, he said.

The commissioners approved the center's plan.

In July, the Discovery Center of Science and Technology in Bethlehem merged with another nonprofit, Leonardo da Vinci's Horse Inc., which also serves to educate children in science.

The center's new building will be on the southwest corner of the college's campus, near Cedar Crest Boulevard and the Hamilton Boulevard bypass. It is expected to cost $7.6 million.

Work on the two-story, 30,000-square-foot glass building will begin after the athletic fields now on the site are relocated in May and will be completed by summer 2005, Pidcock said.

The center is leasing the land from the college, which expects it to be on campus permanently, according to college spokesman Michael Traupman.

In other business, the planners denied a request by the owner of the Sunrise Diner on S. Fourth Street to have an adjoining tract in a residential zone be rezoned to allow a parking lot.

John Rigopoulos wanted to turn a single-family home at 366-368 Chapel Ave. into a parking lot for his diner, which he intends to expand by 60 seats.

Commissioners approved rezoning requests for Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital that further accommodate its expansion in south Allentown. The hospital last week won city approval to close the 500 block of St. John Street to develop an ambulatory care center.

The zoning changes allow the hospital to proceed with plans to build a parking garage on the east side of the 900 block of S. Fifth Street and move ABE Car Center to hospital land across the street.